The Last Corner Before Home

There is a corner on the way to your home. You might not even be aware of it, but it is the last one before you turn into your street or road and see the lights of your own house. Before you quite reach it you can see the very beginnings of the road where you live curving out of sight but so close now that there is no more need for doubt - you are home at last.

I got that sensation twice yesterday in Cardiff and ended up walking past my house – my old house. Chris calls it ‘the Brown Door’ and has talked of it often whilst we have been abroad. The three of us were walking to the school and it is the way we had always walked so we were in sight of that corner before I could even ask him if he wanted to walk past it or go the other way. He said he wanted to see it and so we walked down our own road. Something made me keep to the far side, but we went slowly. William seemed oblivious but Chris and I lingered, trying to see inside. The hedge was trimmed, I noted grudgingly, but I was surprised to see the same pictures we had left hanging on the wall. The only difference I could see was a spray of foliage or something on the edge of the bay window. I picked Chris up and forced us on.

Later that night, after tea and biscuits with friends from school, I got sent out in to the wintry darkness to fetch the car. Again, my feet were making their own way and before I knew it I was there: the Last Corner Before Home, my hands reaching for my door keys as I turned into our old street. I checked myself. That sense of anticipation is a visceral thing. You feel it in your guts, in your chest. I stuffed my hands in my pockets and carried on, the moon a shining half-biscuit in the night sky, Venus warm and yellow, just above the familiar roof tops. Again I couldn’t do anything other than keep to the far side of the street. Again I went slowly, trying to see as much as I could through the unclosed curtains. There were lamps on this time and, walking the opposite direction from before I realised that the foliage I noticed was a Christmas tree in the corner where the television should have been. It is a comforting thought.

There is one more of these corners - a quarter of the way across the world if you can believe it. Tomorrow we are going to get on a plane and fly back to America. It will be warm and sunny (I hope) and I am looking forward to getting on with life there, becoming more established, growing roots like the ones we have enjoyed and been supported by in Cardiff. I am also hoping fervently that I get that feeling in my chest, in my guts as we reach the corner of ______ and _____. The unmistakable sensation that we are home again.